


Replay

by Alethia



Category: True Blood
Genre: Episode Related, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-09
Updated: 2008-10-09
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:04:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alethia/pseuds/Alethia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Why, Pam, can you not see how Miss Stackhouse has returned to play investigator again?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Replay

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during episode 1.04 "Escape From Dragon House." It uses material from the first Southern Vampire Mysteries book, _Dead Until Dark_ , though nothing past what was covered in the episode. Originally posted [here](http://alethialia.livejournal.com/321122.html).

Pam was at Fangtasia's door again. "Sookie Stackhouse. No Bill tonight?" she asked as she uninterestedly checked Sookie's ID. The vault, after all.

"I'm not his keeper."

Pam's eyes flicked up to hers, maybe in surprise? But then she was stone-faced again, just as quickly. "No, you wouldn't be." Before Sookie could ask about that she'd handed her ID back and turned to the next person in line, an effective dismissal.

Well, all right then.

Sookie put her wallet back in her purse and clutched it tighter against her. She looked around her with interest as she headed toward the bar. It was just as crowded as the previous night and no evidence of a police raid showed at all. Vampires still danced to their own beat, a mortal employee still hawked t-shirts to tourists in the corner, patrons drank and stared...all in a crimson-and-grey-decked vampire funhouse. Or it would be, but for the vampires, who tended to look at the mortals like they were walking Happy Meals. Still, it was like nothing unusual had happened last night at all.

Eric must have a great lawyer.

Sookie stopped at the bar, content to wait for Long Shadow to finish teasing one of the fangbangers with a flash of fang, but then a blankness of presence settled in swiftly behind her. A vampire stood there. And he was waiting for her to turn around.

Which vampire would enjoy startling her? Sookie had a pretty good idea and she had no intention of giving him the pleasure.

She set her face into a pleasant smile and turned around. 

Eric's eyes flicked up to her face...from where they'd no doubt been resting on her backside. His lips twitched at her lack of surprise. "Miss Stackhouse, no escort tonight, I see," he said smoothly.

"Bill has his own things to do."

"I'm sure he does." Eric's eyes bored into her. "To what do we owe the pleasure?" He practically purred, implying he had a pretty good idea, or _thought_ he did, that he was willing to indulge her but he was gonna make her say it, humble the mere mortal before this vampire lord. With the way he watched her, sense of waiting there, the smug little quirk to his mouth— 

"I did not come here for you," Sookie said, soft but hot, incensed at the presumption. 

Eric blinked and his face smoothed into a blank wall. He hadn't expected her denial. He'd honestly thought—

Oh, of _course_ he had.

"Of all the—that's some real arrogance you got there," she continued, hand going to her hip in her moment of attitude. Her purse nudged against her lightly. ('Arrogance' had been yesterday's word of the day. She'd been too scared to use it then, but boy did she find it helpful now.)

Eric's eyes flicked down her body and back up. He'd found his little smile again. Like she amused him. 

"You would not be the first," he informed her.

"The first—first—strumpet to jump you behind someone else's back?"

His grin flashed at 'strumpet' but he quickly settled again. Or, settled as much as he did when he was toying with his prey...which is what she was reading in his stance, at least.

"The first to publicly vow an allegiance only to seek me out at a more...advantageous time." Clearly he considered this hypocritical, which was about the only thing they could agree on.

"I would have you know that I am a forthright woman and if I say something publicly, then that's the way it is." Sookie conveniently left out the part about not really meaning it last night. Somehow she didn't think a protest that she belonged to herself would go over too well; Eric would just think that an invitation.

Sookie surely didn't need to give him any openings, not when he invented them all on his own.

"So I see," he said neutrally. 

"Why would you even—no," she stopped herself. She held up a hand and mentally halted that train of thought. "I don't wanna know."

"I could give you pleasure unimaginable," he answered her question anyway, voice almost back to that purr, deep blue eyes holding hers, meaning it.

Sookie mentally shivered; something hot curled in her belly. She pulled her purse to her side and made sure no unease showed on her face.

"Why would I want that?" she asked, voice light.

Eric blinked again and a flicker of a frown touched his lips. Apparently this wasn't the way he'd imagined the conversation would go. "Why would you not?"

"Well, since I can't imagine it, it's not like I know what I'm missing. And seein' as I'd have to relinquish my honor in the process, it doesn't seem like such a good bargain in the end."

Eric studied her mutely. A moment stretched into several and Sookie pulled out of their conversation to realize she was still standing with her back to the bar...and people were giving them an oddly wide berth. 

She wondered if that was Eric's doing or purely fear on their parts. She wondered what he was seeing, what he was thinking—

But then mentally shook herself. This was what she'd always wanted: people whose thoughts she _couldn't_ read.

Eric got her attention again by stepping close, closer than was polite. Sookie would have moved, but she had the bar to her back and nowhere to go and that little feeling of dread was back, like she was prey and not in a good way—

He inhaled, deep. His eyes flickered closed.

Vampires didn't need to breathe. So what was that about?

"You have not parted ways with Bill," Eric stated as his eyes opened again. Only he said it almost like a question, requiring an answer from her.

"I have not."

"You have no trace of his scent on you. Nor did you last night." He raised one big hand to the air above her shoulder, then followed the outline of her body down to her wrist, close but not touching.

"Hey, back off, buster," she said sternly. Again Eric looked half-startled before moving back to a more respectable distance. "Now, what do you mean that I don't have his scent on me?"

He watched her intently. "Bill shouldn't have had to claim you aloud. If you had smelled of him there would be no need. Yet you carry not even a hint." His voice heavily implied what he thought about that and her truthfulness, besides. His voice was real good at implying things.

Sookie ignored the fact that in this case he was one hundred percent correct in just what he was implying.

"I like to take showers," she said obviously, like it was a silly thing even to bring up. She knew how to imply things, too, thank you very much. 

"Your showers must be very—thorough," Eric said in that shivery tone of voice. He had a way of making everyday words sound downright _obscene_.

Sookie's anger flashed hot again. "Now excuse me, but I will not have that dirty talk around me. I am a lady and I'll be treated as such."

Eric looked vaguely amazed. And then innocent. _Thoroughly_. "Apologies if I have caused offense. I assure you it was unintentional." Sookie didn't need to be a telepath to know he was lying...so apparently some things never changed, whether vampire or mortal.

But he'd apologized so she couldn't very well snub him now.

"Apology accepted."

Eric openly studied her again, like he was seeing something unusual, interesting, that he wanted to learn all about. Little warning bells sounded somewhere in her mind, but they took backstage to the warm glow that churned through her insides—the desire to have a man look at her like that and not like she was crazy Sookie, nice to watch but nothing much beyond.

The bar patrons were still keeping their distance; many paid them no mind at all. Definitely Eric's influence; a 6'4" blond undead Viking wasn't exactly something you could miss.

"You have a sense of the innocent about you," Eric said, unbidden.

Sookie came to the present with a jolt. Once again he was absolutely right, which was just irritating beyond belief, first off and second, that was not the kind of thing one mentioned in conversation with a casual acquaintance—regardless of the fact that _he_ wanted to be much more than casually acquainted. It also left her with absolutely no way to respond.

She was probably gaping. It wasn't the calm she'd wanted to display, but well, she'd just have to deal with that when she got home. And shuddered through the memory of this conversation.

Eric watched her keenly, openly fascinated at the play of emotions on her face.

"I can't believe—how dare—what is the _matter_ with you?" Sookie asked, finally settling on one expression of her disbelief.

Pam materialized at Eric's right hand. He didn't acknowledge her in any way. "Problem?" she asked, mild.

"Of course not. I was just getting acquainted with Bill's Miss Stackhouse." He said 'Bill's' like it was an open lie but they had to keep up appearances. And she couldn't call him on it because then she'd look suspicious. 

Oh, _damn_ this man. Vampire. Whichever.

"She still allies herself with Bill?" Pam asked.

"She does."

They could be discussing the weather, for all their inflection. And Sookie might as well walk away for all that she was a participant in this conversation.

Pam tilted her head and then Sookie had two ancient vampires studying her with no small amount of interest.

_Why_ had she come here again?

As if Pam could read her thoughts, she asked: "Two nights in a row. What did we do to get so lucky?" Though perhaps her words had an edge to them that shifted the meaning a bit.

"Why, Pam, can you not see how Miss Stackhouse has returned to play investigator again?" Eric finally turned to address the blonde and Sookie didn't understand his tone. There was some kind of challenge there, but he wasn't doing his dirty implying thing. For once. 

Or maybe that wasn't all he was doing?

She didn't understand him and she didn't understand them and they seemed to be having a silent conversation that Sookie couldn't even begin to unscramble. 

"But, of course," Pam said finally and they both turned back to her.

"Care to clue the rest of us in?" Sookie asked.

"You're clutching your bag and every few moments your hand goes to a picture inside. But you never take it out," Pam said, obvious.

Oh, _shoot_. She'd been going for calm. 

Well, seeing as they'd already noticed all that it was pointless to deny it. Sookie took a breath and committed herself. "It's of my brother. I came to ask if you'd seen him around here."

"Yet you have not asked," Eric said neutrally.

"I wasn't sure I wanted to bring him to your attention." She still wasn't.

Their unimpressed looks told her plainly that she was standing right in front of them, so she must not be all that unsure.

"The police suspect him, though I know he couldn't do it. Jason just doesn't have it in him to kill anyone, much less Maudette and Dawn."

"You have some doubt, else you wouldn't have returned," Pam said, cold and flat. 

"Pam and I will be glad to help you in this matter," Eric said, quite formally. Pam glanced at the back of his head, but said nothing further.

Sookie brought out the picture and tried not to fidget as Eric took it, deliberately brushing her fingers in the process. The heat curling in her belly wasn't going away any time soon. Maybe ever. After a couple looks and a single brush of fingers. 

Weak. She hated to think of herself in the same light as the pathetic fangbangers—as Maudette and Dawn, though she hated to think ill of the dead—but there was just something _about_ Eric. An echo of it in Bill, too, but she hadn't been drawn to any of the others in the same way. So it must be something in their bearing, something in them as individuals. She could admit (to herself) that it relieved her to know she wasn't just getting all hot-and-bothered by the vampire in them.

Oh, Lord, was she thinking about herself getting hot-and-bothered over _Eric_?

"He's pretty, but I have not seen him here," Eric said, tapping Jason's picture. He handed it to Pam, who looked at it thoughtfully. Accessing her vault, maybe, but Sookie held her tongue about that.

"I've seen him. But only once before."

"Would you happen to remember if he was with either of the girls, the ones whose pictures I showed you last night?"

Pam showed as much interest in her urgency as a pet rock would be. "I do not recall."

"Oh. Well, thank you, thank you so much."

"Seeing as you're so very grateful," Eric said, drawing out the words. Sookie gritted her teeth and waited for the other shoe. "Perhaps you'd be kind enough to help us with a little mystery of our own."

"What mystery?" Sookie asked, guarded.

Eric's glance sharpened. "How did you know there would be a raid last night?" 

Bill hadn't been pleased with the notion, but Eric wasn't the type to give up. He'd find out eventually—it might as well be from her own lips.

"I read the policeman's mind," she said simply.

Something flickered in Eric's gaze. Pam looked at her more keenly. "You can read the thoughts of others?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And what of vampires?" Eric asked idly, letting his eyes scan the bar, like he hadn't a care in the world about her answer. 

Sookie knew this to be a lie; his spine had tensed. Her heart started beating out a tapdance of a rhythm as danger made itself known once again. This vampire could kill her before she blinked. And he would, too, in order to protect his own. Of that Sookie had no illusions.

Still, she kept her voice steady and light: "Nope. Vampires' minds are closed to me."

Eric's wandering eyes found hers again, boring into her, gauging the level of her truthfulness, maybe.

Since she _was_ telling the truth—this time—she lifted her chin and stared right back, let him look all he liked.

Finally satisfied, his eyes flitted down her frame suggestively. "I've had a telepath, once," he said. "It was an experience I'd be glad to repeat."

"You just keep your happy thoughts to yourself," she muttered.

Both Eric and Pam smiled at that.

The tip of Eric's tongue pressed against his teeth, though his fangs weren't extended. "If you came to me freely, Bill would have to accept it." That got a sharp look from Pam; Eric probably couldn't see it.

"I have no interest in coming to you," Sookie said firmly.

Eric leaned into her space and inhaled again. He closed his eyes and got a look on his face like he was savoring something. When he opened his eyes, they were very blue and very predatory.

"I think you do." Stated simply, with an air of finality about it. "You're speaking words your body does not believe."

What did that—why did he—

Pam looked part-amused, part-surprised, her focus all on Eric. Or the back of Eric's head.

"You can think what you like," Sookie said, brusque. She shoved the picture back in her purse and pulled it tighter into her side, then tried to step back from him as best she could. It didn't do much since the bar was digging into her back, but it reminded Eric of his manners and he moved back. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must be on my way. Again, I very much appreciate your help."

"Good evening, Miss Stackhouse," Eric said, nodding farewell in a courtly way. The way he rolled her name around his tongue, well, that was anything but courtly. "I am always available to you."

The echo of 'pleasure unimaginable' and the brush of his fingers flashed through her mind at once and heat swept through her again. Sookie forced herself to smile brightly, turn, and walk off. Her breath wanted to come in ragged gasps, but she held it at bay. His mojo may not work, but damn if the old-fashioned way wasn't getting to her.

So she marched herself right out of that bar and into her car and she was careful about not thinking too much about any pleasures, either. No good could come of that. None at all.

Besides, as she reminded herself, Eric _scared_ her. In a stomach-dropping, spine-tingling, cold-sweat kinda way.

It was just her insides getting it all mixed up that it sometimes felt like a stomach-fluttering, spine-tingling, heat-flush, take-me-now kinda way. That was all.

Sookie took one last deep breath and felt her nerves settle back into place in the peaceful silence around her. She started the car. She could think about this more once she got home and surrounded herself with her own things and her own comforts and her own world. 

The world of Fangtasia, well. She wasn't a part of that, after all. 

***

Fin.


End file.
